Louis Marx - Biography

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish German parents, Marx graduated high school at age 15 and started his career working for Ferdinand Strauss, a manufacturer of mechanical toys. By 1916, Marx was managing Strauss' East Rutherford, New Jersey plant. But within a year, Marx was fired by Strauss' board of directors over a disagreement about sales practices.

Marx then entered the United States Army as a private and attained the rank of sergeant before returning to civilian life in 1918. Marx's passion for the Army was reflected throughout his life; most of Marx's military toys represented Army equipment, and Marx would make a practice of befriending generals and naming his sons after them.

Following military service, Marx then went to work selling for a Vermont based manufacturer of wood toys, redesigned the product line, and increased the company's sales tenfold.

In 1919 Marx and his brother David incorporated, founding the company that bore his name. Initially working as a middle man, Marx was soon able to purchase tooling to manufacture toys himself. When Strauss fell on hard financial times, Marx was able to buy the dies for two Strauss toys and turn them into best-sellers. By age 26, three years after founding his company, Marx was a millionaire.

By utilizing techniques of mass production and reusing old designs as much as possible - Marx utilized some of his toy train tooling developed in the early 1930s until 1972 - Marx was able to sell a broad line of inexpensive toys. All US made toy trains would come from the Girard plant, producing millions of lithographed tin and plastic toy trains.

By 1951, Marx's company had 12 factories worldwide and for much of the 1950s it was the largest toy manufacturer in the world adding most of the success to Sears, Roebuck catalog sales and the many themed playsets available. As World War II drew to a close, Marx had toured Europe and acted as a consultant on how toy manufacturing could aid reconstruction efforts. Marx used the contacts he made in this manner to forge partnerships and open factories in Europe and Japan. Marx was featured on the cover of the December 12, 1955 issue of Time Magazine, his likeness surrounded by examples of his toys.

Marx's first wife, Renee, died of breast cancer at age 33. His second wife, a secretary at his company, was 28 years his junior.

Marx's daughter, Patricia, was born in 1938. She went on to become an author and activist and married Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame. Marx, who had been a strident anti-Communist and was an admirer of Richard Nixon, regarded Ellsberg as a traitor.

Marx's son, Louis Marx Junior, is a venture capitalist. He seems to be a philanthropist who has contributed to the arts, education and medicine. One such example is the Louis Marx Center for Children and Families of New York.

Marx retired in 1972, selling his company to Quaker Oats for $54 million. Marx was 76 years old and his company had been declining. The decline has variously been blamed on the company's slowness to develop electronic toys and on Marx's unwillingness to employ salesmen for fear of someone else repeating his early experience with Strauss.

Louis Marx died in a hospital in White Plains, New York at age 85. He is interred in a private mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.

The original house of the Marx estate stood on Gatehouse Road in Scarsdale, NY. Even while remaining empty and neglected for many years, its grandeur was breathtaking. The red brick, white-pillared mansion was built in 1904 and had nine fireplaces and 14 baths. It had a swimming pool, tennis court, paddle court and a four-car garage with a seven-room caretaker's cottage above it. A chain linkfence, to prevent Marx’s 13 dogs from straying, enclosed the entire compound. The mansion appeared to be a vestige of a gone by era. Before the subdivision of the property in the 1980s, the home had a Weaver Street address and could be viewed through the open lawn from the street. The property is surrounded by 29 contemporary homes, on uniform lots, which hides it from view.

The property was owned by the legendary Louis Marx, sometimes called the Toy King of America, who died in 1982 at the age of 85. He had nine children, who he named after famous friends who were named as godparents to the children: Emmett Dwight, for Gen. Emmett O'Donnell and President Eisenhower; Spencer Bedell, for Gen. Walter Bedell Smith; Bradley Marshall, for Gen. Omar N. Bradley and Gen. George C. Marshall; Curtis Gruenther, for Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and Gen. Albert M. Gruenther, and Hunter Bernhard, for Gen. Hunter Harris and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.

Marx is as legendary as his estate. A 1955 article in Time Magazine describes his arrival at a soiree at the 21 Club in Manhattan; “A roly-poly, melon-bald little man with the berry-bright eyes and beneficent smile of St. Nick touching down on a familiar rooftop. Louis Marx, America's toy king and cafe-society Santa, was arriving at his favorite workshop. With his beautiful blonde wife Idella, who looks the way sleigh bells sound, 59-year-old Lou Marx toddled regally toward a table in the center of the downstairs room. The table is always reserved for Millionaire Marx by the divine right of toy kings, and the fact that he has never been known to let anyone else pay the check. “

And city friends were not the only ones to benefit from his generosity. Each Halloween from 1940 to 1980, Marx distributed hundreds of toys to neighborhood children who came to trick or treat. He built a multi-million dollar toy company and was free handed with his gifts.

Upon Marx’s death, Anthony Scarcella, a New Rochelle developer, bought the estate and received approval to subdivide it and build 29 homes. He built the development and in 1985 he sold the original home on 1.75 acres (7,100 m2) to Alexander Raydon, who kept it until October 2007. When Raydon died, Scarcella re-purchased the house, for $2,500,000, which was more than the sale price of the entire estate in 1982. Scarcella then attempted to gain approval to tear it down and build three more new homes on the property. However, this time he received far more resisitance from the Board of Architectural Review and ultimately the Scarsdale Board of Trustees. He was denied a demolition permit to tear down the home because it was found to be a structure of substantial historic importance. The BAR found that the mansion met three of the four preservation criteria and that its demolition would be detrimental to the public interest. Ultimately, on February 14th, 2012, Anthony Scarcella was granted a permit to demolish the estate. As of fall 2012, the demolition has been completed and the mansion no longer stands.